I disagree with Beck. McCain would have been a retread of W - pretty liberal on government spending and conservative on defense. Instead we have Obama who is very liberal on government spending and somewhat-conservative-but-getting-weaker on defense. It's a matter of degrees.

I don't know the rest of Glenn Beck's point but I don't suspect he said, "McCain would have been worse for the *Republicans*" which he would have.

To believe in Obama's bona fides as superior to McCain's bina fides takes a lot of Hope these days. Let it be true. Just to be safe, I would avoid making any investments in Honduras or in Poland or in Israel until Obama's bona fides has decided to repent of using sheer betrayal as his version of an act of courage.

I'm holding out hope that Obama is just so bad that the liberals get thrown out again for a while though. And if that's true, then yes, McCain would have been worse. But I'm pretty worried about the damage that the total control by the Democrats can do.

I disagree with Beck. McCain would have been a retread of W - pretty liberal on government spending and conservative on defense.

I think Rialby's got it right. I thought Beck was a jerk on CNN and I think all Fox has done for him is given him a Messiah complex. And, yes, I'm a conservative, as opposed to Right Winger (notice how the Lefties can't discriminate beyond that term?). I can't see McCain waffling on A-stan and I don't see him doing health care.

Beck may be in the process of becoming a libertarian, but it's the kind of libertarian that wanted to stay home and do nothing after 9/11. If have to pick and choose between libertarians, I take Boortz over Beck any day. I guess I see Boortz as a thinking man's Beck.

I think McCain has a fair record of not being a big spender. I know he would have caved to the Dems a lot, but this massive spending that has gone on under Obama, with proposals for more? I don't think we'd have had that with McCain.

As with John Lynch, the thought that McCain would be even worse is why I voted for Obama. Obama's early going (is it still early?) is testing this theory. He's never run anything (still isn't running anything, it seems) and it shows. Harry Truman had never run anything either, and he did all right. Barack, we're waiting.

I think McCain would've gotten gays in the military done quicker than Obama will, and likely would've done something to defuse the tensions around gay partnerships. I believe so for two reasons: first, he has little to lose and wouldn't care, given his age and his general moderation as these things go; and second, it's simply a question of balls. McCain has them, Obama, not so much.

I think ricpic is right. A McCain presidency would have smothered conservatives and libertarians, while Obama-lite policies were passed with no hope of overturning them in the future. Levin has a point on foreign relations -- McCain would have be far better -- but preserving some semblance of a conservative/libertarian spirit in the people is paramount right now.

McCain would have gotten more liberal legislative initiatives passed, at least the essence of them, than Obama will...because McCain would have been so busy feeling apologetic for beating the first major party black candidate that he would have bent over backwards to show how he's really a pretty decent guy. Look at how he kissed ass during his concession speech. McCain's primary motivation appears to be not conservative principles of any particular sort, but looking noble. And to him, anti-racism is the most noble thing - it's why he's such a traitor on immigration issues - so he'd have spent his presidency passing Obama's legislation as proof of how unracist he is. That is until he got pissed about not having enough gratitude shown to him by the Dems for it, at which point he'd abruptly try to pass some arch-conservative legislation to punish them. The man was all about his mood of the moment rather than principle. At least with Obama there is a very clear socialist enemy, despite his attempts to paper over his leftism with generalities and free-market-sounding language.

The substance of the may be debatable, but how is making the comment even remotely "controversial?" Beck is not the first to say it. I clearly remember a joke making the conservative rounds from last November 5th: "The bad news is, Obama won. The good news is, McCain lost!"

Didn't watch the clip, but I think the take-away is enough to work with.

1. It's not just the man, it's the team. While McCain's campaign team was lousy at running a campaign, there was enough seasoned talent on the Republican side to have avoided the messes Obama's good-at-campaigning-lousy-at-governing team has produced.

2. With McCain, there would have been divided government, meaning the loose-cannon Democratic Leadership would have felt some pressure to remain within the boundaries of reality. Which brings me to....

3. McCain wouldn't be mailing things in. Obmama's logged about a billion TV hours pitching his health plan, and he doesn't have a health plan; he's got whatever get's cobbled together by the aforementioned loose-cannon, reality-challenged Democratic Leadership. Get a czar to draft a plan then work to understand it, Mr. I'm-Smarter-Than-You-Deserve Obama.

4. It arguable that an Obama loss in November would have set back race relations in this country, but at least it's possible that it wouldn't have. As is, the race card is getting played more aggressively that the Ace of Spades in a game of, well, Spades.

5. Joe Biden wouldn't be a heartbeat or an impeachment away from the Presidency. (Which may be why Obama picked him, I don't know...)

6. McCain wouldn't be p***ing on Honduras' Constitution, and just generally easing the way for the devolution of Latin American political stability.

7. McCain wouldn't be p***ing on Eastern Europe.

8. McCain might try to lie to people as often and as boldly as Obama, but he wouldn't get a pass on it from the Embedded Media.

I'm sure there are more points, but any four of these would be enough to keep me very happy with my vote for McCain.

Sucks, doesn't it? But I disagree. McCain would have been bad, but what we have now (or will have if his health care plan, cap and trade, and projected budgets pass) is far, far worse than what we'd have gotten with McCain. And I don't mean that as support for McCain.

The only way we could be better off with the anti-patriotic Obama (his whole life has been steeped in anti-Americanism, he is the epitome of Transnational Progressivism) who is actively engaged in "remaking" America into another failed collectivist social experiment is if he serves as the emetic that finally causes America to vomit up the poison of socialism once and for all.

Beck has a point about McCain and the drip drip drip of big government. In a way this election was similar to the 1912 election. Both McCain and Obama are fascists in their own way (although Obama is far worse).

However, Beck will soon eat his words when Obama abandonds Afghanistan and severly weakens America abroad. McCain would have never abandonded the troops like Obama is about to do. McCain would have never "disarmed" in the way a leftist does in the face of his enemy.

Yeah, McCain and Obama are both fascists, but McCain wants the America of the founders to survive. Obama wants some other America.

Early in the election I thought McCain fairly innocuous, having done the damage he could with the ridiculous and unconstitutional CFR. And by the way, hasn't that had the exact effect critics predicted? Now even more power is in the hands of Moveon and their ilk. This was not a step forward.

Then he showed how dangerous he still was with his immigration stance and general glee when attacking Republicans. I think only Huckabee had worse ideas. And even he would have been a better president than McCain since we could count on Democrats blocking that agenda with 100% certainty.

I agree Hillary would have been better. I give her all kind of credit for being more realistic about healthcare during the election even though it cost her dearly. McCain- Meh. As I've said previously, he would have been bad on the economy as well, but perhaps not as aggressively bad.

Obama allows the dem/libs/progressives to not be in a snit for another 4 - 8 years. Since I live in a blue area, it really does affect me on a daily level when they are miserable. You can feel everybody enter a deep sulk the minute any republican is elected.

In a way I'm enjoying my guy/gal not being in office during these trying times. No vicarious pressure. No responsibility. I can bitch whenever I want. And if I'm supportive, I'm being gracious. If things happen to go well, I can enjoy them just like anyone else. What fun.

I don't agree with Beck now and I didn't agree with your reasoning back then.

It has always seemed to me that without an economy that is functioning you really have nothing going for you at all. If you are going to be responsible for applying the laws and policies you are given by the legislature, then you had damned well better have some input to what you will have to enforce and at least understand the basics of what is intended in the legislation. That was why I thought McCain was absolutely right in tryng to get involved in the economic question. All else devolves from that. No economy, no jobs, no taxes, no money, no funding for the rest of the things you are gong to do, and a totally garbled economic policy to boot. Not good as we can see very well.

One thing that tends to make me think a lot of conservatives, even those that voted for McCain out of loyalty or "because he suffered as a POW" are happy he didn't win is the near complete absence of people expressing regret that McCain lost..at the tea parties, in talk radio conversations. The conversations of course rail on Obama...but little if any talk about how it would be all different and better with McCain pushing cap&trade, war with Iran, an even bigger bailout than Obama with his 500 billion plan for giving money to anyone that has a bigger house and mortgage than they can afford.

David said... As with John Lynch, the thought that McCain would be even worse is why I voted for Obama. Obama's early going (is it still early?) is testing this theory. He's never run anything (still isn't running anything, it seems) and it shows. Harry Truman had never run anything either, and he did all right. Barack, we're waiting.

With Obama, we conservatives saw a flawed guy lacking experience but possibly with potential..running against a Senator for Life who got more incoherent each day the campaign progressed. A Senator with a track record of licking the boots of the media and regularly sabotaging and selling out the President and other Republicans. A man even the Bushies called a "stupid prick". No, part of McCain's big problem was people believed on Nov 4th that they knew exactly what they were getting with McCain...more war, pretty much everything the Democrats wanted domestically, anger, incoherence, lack of any real ideas...

(As for Palin, her Cult of Personality does seem to be fading. She made a very poor showing at the Convention of fundie values voters, with Huckabee getting most votes, followed by Romney and Pawlenty)

Cedarford: I don't see how a conservative could vote for Obama. I could see voting Libertarian, but Obama? I just don't buy it. Basing it on his pick of Palin is absurd in my opinion as well. Use your own measure of the lifelong Senator Joe Biden as a refutation of that.

McCain would be a substantial disappointment , but Obama is downright scary. Totally untrustworthy, incompetent, wrong-headed, stubborn and naive. But, forget all that, we got us a black President and I feel neet about it.

By now we would be over our fears of what McCain might do. I'm more worried about Obama than ever. He is demonstrating an ideological rigidity and dishonesty that makes him very dangerous.

The people who should fear us, do not, and both them and our friends see us suckers.

The biggest difference is that under McCain the press would at least do their job.

McCain would have been worse for Beck, worse for Fox news, better for the country. McCain might have been a squish, but with him we wouldn't have risked the big ticket legislation, the attempted mainstreaming of left wing radicalism, or the consequences of Obama's amateur hour foreign policy.

I don't see how a conservative could vote for Obama. I could see voting Libertarian, but Obama?

Yes. What Darcy said. I almost wrote in Thompson but when McCain put Palin on the ticket, I thought that they just might have a chance to beat the Commie Obama.

At that time I thought McCain might be marginally better for the country, but now, I think that Obama is just what we needed to shock the living shit out of us and make people wake up to the danger. The danger that we may lose America as a country. Lose the Constitution. Lose our Freedoms and become serfs of the State.

We were already heading that way, and with McCain we would have continued our slow slide. Obama was a slap in the face and a damned wake up call.

The more I think about it, the more it occurs to me that our present system of electing presidents is pretty seriously flawed. I seem to be among a minority in my appreciation for George H. W. Bush, but none -- as in not one -- of the candidates in any of the elections of 1996, 2000, 2004, or 2008 struck me as first rate. Yes, I am including the third (and fourth) party candidates.

I am getting very tired of this, and would dearly love to see an amendment to the constitution adding "none of the above" as an option, with the stipulation that the election has to be held all over again with brand new candidates if "none of the above" gets a plurality. That might not have been enough to spare us the current denizen of the White House, but I could picture it coming into play in the elections of 2000 and 2004.

Professor, before making up your mind I wish you had researched the story of Altgeld Gardens, the community that Barack Obama allegedly organized. A sadder community does not exist on the face of the earth, surrounded as it is by major sources of noxious odors right up through outright pollution. Obama did not organize the community -- that was done by Jerry Kellman, a white man -- and the community had already been trying to get asbestos removed from the housing units long before Obama showed up. Barack Obama does get credit for negotiating an agreement with the City of Chicago to remove the asbestos, but then he left for Harvard Law without following through and my information is that as recently as last Inauguration Day -- over twenty years later! -- there was still asbestos remaining in some of the units in Altgeld Gardens. After he came back from Harvard with his comfy position in the Law faculty of the University of Chicago there is no evidence that he ever tried to do anything for Altgeld Gardens again. Basically he threw an entire community under the bus.

McCain didn't understand economics very well, let's stipulate that. But at least he knows what he doesn't know. As regards economics, Barack Obama knows not, and knows not that he knows not. His association with the Daley Machine suggested to me that he would be unscrupulous and demonstrate raw and extreme partisanship, and in these two areas I have been 100% correct in my analyses.

Foreign policy: I think McCain would be more resolute in dealing with Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran.

Advantage: McCain

Domestic policy: I think that McCain pushes immigration reform over healthcare reform. Netierh one really excites me. While I suspect a McCain stimulus bill would have been smaller, offset by cuts/freezes in spending, his willingness to cross the aisle probably mitigates any real advantage he'd have on budgetary concerns.

Advantage: Push

Supreme Court Nominee: Even if McCain picked someone that I only agree with on disputed casts 6 times out of 10, that's better than I expect from Sotomayor (or any future Obama appointee).

Advantage: McCain

While I'm not a huge McCain fan, I just don't see how/where Obama would be better in any sense that's important to me.

As DBQ says, the awakening of the country is definitely a good result of Obama. I guess that might be what it took. I can't imagine anyone else on the political scene getting people riled up like he has. He's a regular Paul Revere.

American's don't need a leader they only need a threat to rise to the fight. A threat, he certainly is.

With that said, I watched about 40 minutes of his show one night and was impressed by 2 things:

1. When he had a guest, he let them talk. For long periods of time. There were none of the constant interruptions that you get with fathead Hannity or O'Reilley.

2. He spent a whole segment on "Is the government going to monetize our debt, and what does that mean?" He presented it clearly and thoroughly, with a guest, in terms I could understand. That is very rare, on any show. As much as I dislike his TV persona, I was really impressed that he put so much time and effort into a very unsexy topic.

Overall, I ended up with a more positive impression than I started with. With that said, he still comes across as a complete tool. So I am going to have to watch it again and reserve judgment til then.

(I suspect the McCain comment was just to further pique interest in himself.)

I detest Glenn Beck. Not because he is a conservative, but because his shows are so overproduced that he's nothing more than a shameless self-promoter. And his annunciation on TV and Radio is irritating as hell.

Tough call. McCain couldn't disappoint because no one really expected much from him. O could do nothing but disappoint, since, (sigh), he's a man... he's just a man.

But here's where McCain might have made a difference- the "hope" factor. The economy will come out a recession when those who produce start producing again. Under Obama, I believe the recovery is delayed because the producers fear more punitive taxes and govt interference. They are not hiring, and not expanding their businesses. O's "Economics of Hope" only appeal to the non-producers.

I would expect, since M is not a Marxist like O, that he would not be pursuing economic policies that could ultimately bankrupt the government, or turn a recession into a depression. But who knows. McCain also worships at the global-warming alter, so crap N trade may still have been pushed. But I don't see M becoming a Dennis Moore type redistributionist.

McCain would've been a check to a Dem hold on the House and Senate, which would be a plus (anything that can slow down the actions of our legislators is a plus in my book). But again who knows. He so loves sticking it to the Repubs, he may have sided with the Dems just to show what a maverick he is.

On foreign policy, "bomb Iran" McCain would have scared the shit out of Putin and the loon in Iran, and they would've left us alone for four more years out of fear of what the nut would do.

But the worst part of a McCain presidency would have been 4 more years of non-stop Sarah Palin jokes. I bet what's-her-face on SNL was disappointed.

I voted for McCain but I felt it was a hopeless cause. He seemed to have no enthusiasm for the campaign at the end, although Palin certainly livened things up. Near the end, he just didn't seem interested any more. It scared me because we really needed someone with tremendous energy and guts to confront the Obama machine, and McCain tried to hard to be "nice". I don't think I've ever felt so hopeless as I did last November.

I do know this... if McCain had won over Obama, the Left would have LOST THEIR MINDS. You think 500k people peacefully marching on September is a "racist", "crazy", "winger" phenomenon? If the One had lost, there would have been violence. Without a doubt.

So obviously no one cares that NONE of the assorted loonies and alternative (R) candidates upon whom you've just bestowed your collective blessings and judgments would have won in the general.

Your party is not waking anybody up to anything other than the fact that the partisans of the right are in a state of denial and free-fall. And possible implosion.

I'm truly sorry. It must be tough. Try reforming in a way that doesn't cast contempt upon the non-ideological concerns of the public at large if you ever want to stand a chance in the foreseeable future. But as long as you care more about ideological purity then you will continue to reap what you sow.

I would like to hear the whole quote, but in a way I agree. I feel that Obama is the Great Clarifier; either you get the real left or the fake left in compassionate conservative in McCain. This is what the left really is.

This is what America thought it wanted; do they still? They seem to hate his proposals.

Are Obama and the Democrats more popular than the Republicans? Sure, a little, but the gap has closed dramatically. Which means that if Republicans are in free fall, the Democrats must be in a power dive. :)

As for the observation that none of the candidates being discussed could have won in 2008... yeah, and?

It was glaringly obvious that the Republicans were going to lose in 2008. Bush's second term was a disaster for the party, and it had been long enough since the last time the Democrats had a lock on both the Presidency and the Congress that most people had forgotten what a fiasco that would be.

So this was a good opportunity for the Republican Party to nominate a candidate who presented a clear choice. Not a Bush or a McCain, who differed from Democrats only in how MUCH they wanted to increase government meddling in private lives, but a true small-government conservative. One not afraid to blame the economic fiascos of the last few years on the Fed, Fannie Mae, et all -- and one willing to argue that the proper action was to reign in government, not add another couple of trillion dollars in debt.

Yeah, he would have lost. Worse than McCain, even. But when Obama and the Democrats' plans turned into the disaster they inevitably would, at least the Republicans could have said "things would have been different under us" and had some credibility. As it is, we're faced with Obama's disaster and what can we say? "Oh, OUR massive government intervention would actually have worked"?

McCain would have been far more effective in enacting legislation than the utterly clueless Obama, who has yet to offer a health care bill months os speak with rank and file Congress critters like LBJ and Reagan. However, it is really difficult to see a McCain Administration nationalizing Chrysler and GM, appointing 30+ czars, filling his administration with nut jobs like Van Jones or nationalizing health care.

Still, McCain goes off on these authoritarian jags like the awful McCain/Feingold political speech suppression bill. Given his flirtation with the global warming cult, it is more than possible that he would be pushing cap and tax and having a great deal more success than Obama.

Beck is an entertainer. His job is to go over the top. I've seen his show five or six times. There's a substratum of hysteria about him. The only thing standing between us and Obama's vile plots are Beck and his blackboard. It's kind of entertaining, but take it all with a grain of salt.....What makes a successful entertainer is not what makes a successful statesman. Entertainers seek drama and catharsis, not balance and consensus. It's a loser's game to pigeonhole Beck or Rush as spokesman for the Republican Party. They are spokesmen for their sponsors, and their primary loyalties are to their ratings. I think they are very good at what they do, but what they do is not governing or winning elections.

Sloanasaurus - However, Beck will soon eat his words when Obama abandonds Afghanistan and severly weakens America abroad. McCain would have never abandonded the troops like Obama is about to do.

The problem we have is the old Bush-neocon strategy - nation building for Muslims who are corrupt, violent, distrust us and have no strong desire for Western-style Freedom!! & Democracy!! With the rationale that we need to push our military to the max, burn them out..spend a trillion dollars in 8 years on it...and tell everyone we will continue to have tax cuts and just borrow the money from China.

Because if we allow any nation to become failed, radicalized, or fail to intervene in a Muslim on Muslim Civil war...we will allow the creation of an Evildoer Sanctuary.

In fact, after Iraq and Afghanistan, or during it, the same people WARN us that we must get ready for new wars in Somalia to safe the Somalis from themselves and build them into a flourishing nation so terrorists don't camp there..As well as Sudan, Yemen, the N Nigeria crisis, a war with Pakistan is possible to save Pakis from themselves and prevent more "evildoers" from training there. Ditto with the need to "surgically hit" Lebanon, Syria, and the Biggie that McCain wanted to have war with - Iran - for Our Special Friend's demand.

***Sorry, I don't see pulling troops out of unwinnable wars or in preventing a war that would be an economic, diplomatic, and strategic disaster for America(Iran - thousands or tens of thousands of US troops dead, world behind Ira on "Zionist puppet aggression", gas 7 bucks a gallon) - as "abandoning the troops". It instead screws them and the country to plot a course of action where America is the world's 9/11 on borrowed Chinese money, with no allies, and 20+ years of heavy military expense and attrition expected in 8-10 Muslim countries...with side matters like China's rapid military modernization, N Korea, Burma all out there too..***

McCains thinking appeared to be if your whole strategy and premises are in error...it can all be fixed by war and money thrown at a threat.

===================Justlurking - On foreign policy, "bomb Iran" McCain would have scared the shit out of Putin and the loon in Iran, and they would've left us alone for four more years out of fear of what the nut would do.

There are few things that will be more satisfying to Ahmadinejad than the US complicit in a Zionist attack on Iran or doing it as the direct puppet of Israel. That would guarantee at least 30 more years of the radicals in full power in Iran - and the US and it's Special Friend fully blamed for a Gulf shutdown and ensuing Global Depression.Putin would be happy with that because then Europe would be largely reliant on Russia for energy needs. And if McCain had ticked off Russia too much as President, following through with his statements how he would send US troops to Georgia to fight Russian special forces to "help our Freedom Lover!! ally" - Russia could cut off all logistics into Afghanistan, arm Taliban with modern anti-air missiles like Stingers only 1 generation better - stood back and watched all the fun.

No, Putin and Russia would not have feared McCain in the least. They would have just seen how deep a mess the "stupid prick" as Bush called him, could get himself and America into.

So I'm supposed to believe that because some entertainers don't like each other the right is going to collapse?

Meh, I'll believe it when I see it.

Now if you want to see something that truly has the potential to collapse a political party just look to McChrystal's resignation threat and the Democrats.

If Obama increases troops his hard left base will freak out, and if he abandons Afghanistan (the good war) he basically shows he wasn't serious about national security. Either way he manages to piss off a substantial portion of the electorate.

My prediction is that Obama will pull out of Afghanistan and do so pretty quickly, so that the Democrats coming up for reelection in 2010 will have roughly a year to develop their talking points as to why abandoning the Afghans to the Taliban is the one right to have done.

If he stays in until he can claim a victory (and he still has to define what "victory" looks like) he risks rising death tolls and a population that was conditioned during Iraq to believe that body bags are bad.

If he dawdles and then pulls out he stands a chance that the consequent Taliban victory will be too fresh in people's minds and that Democrats will be punished at the polls.

Huh?Maybe because I found Sloanasaurus's assertion that if you pull troops out of an unwinnable war (fought for a Karzai narcokleptocracy even more 'Potemkin' than the Soviet communist puppet gov't) - you abandon the troops...more in need of a sanity check.

Time permitting, maybe I will address Darcy. But I note that Althouse herself answered Darcy's questions back when..when she described her decision process in voting Obama. 'Cept for the conservative part because the Prof is more of a moderate..

McCain didn't want the job. I don't know whether this makes him worse."

THis is not how it played out. People have menory loss over the election cycle but untill the Atock Market meltdown McCain was even or ahead of Obama causing some fears in the Dem camp. This is all forgotten by the McCain/Palin camp was inept crowd.

Here's my take on Beck - it's a very, very mild form of Alex Joneism mixed with a little bit of Morton Downey Jr. sans the confrontation. In the end, I don't think he's as Libertarian as he claims but he certainly is making the most of the moment. When confronted with rampant statism, embrace the other pole.

Glen Beck is a wild and crazy guy. He honestly reminds me of Joseph McCarthy a lot. Not that there was any thing wrong with Joe McCarthy except for his money and alcohol addictions. Joe McCarthy and Glen Beck are both spot on in targeting a real hidden enemy that seriously HATES exposure of its existence to the everyday fat and happy good people who like to believe that all people are good like them. Beck is therefore like that famous drug sniffing dog ...and there will be an attempt to destroy him launched, like an al queda plot is launched, from deeply hidden places. Good hunting, Tail Gunner Glenn.

@Freeman, the game's almost over anyway. Between people who directly derive their income from the government and the people who pay no income taxes, the Democrats already have over 50% of the electorate.

McCain now belongs to the world of counter factuals. If you like him, you can make up a rosy scenario about his Presidency. And everything Obama does is factual....I voted for McCain. I wasn't expecting Pericles, but I thought he would get more things right than Obama.....I'm currently reading a biography of Walter Lippmann. He was the official wise man of his day--like Tom Friendman only to a higher power. He wrote a column for more than forty years and thus left a paper trail. It's stunning to see how much a well informed, well intentioned wise man can get wrong and still retain absolute confidence in the wisdom of his judgements. He reminds me of Obama.

"And, you can bet that if he'd won, certain people who are now vehemently opposed to BHO would be doing a sales job for McCain."

Great post Lonewacko - had McCain been elected all the "Bushbots" would have turned into "Mcainiacs"

I can just imagine Frum/Goldberg/Hewitt/Bennett telling us 'we need to grow-up' and support President's McCain's Heatlh Care "reform" or "Amnesty" or some moderate SCOTUS pick (approved by Lieberman of course) because 'blah,blah,blah'.

I will say this, and I will say this one time only, because it involves being rude to you, of all people, freemanhunt (which I never expected to have to be):

Don't do all that "what you will have left to do in your limited freedom when the Great State takes it all over" with me.

For that matter, don't do all that "do you mean what you can do to turn it all around" with me.

What the hell are you assuming you know? And who the f* are you, anyway, to try and engage me in that way? As if what you've read over the past 5-10 years is absolutely new to the world, or to me, for that matter, or to people decades before me, which more matters?

Glenn Beck has confessed tat he used to be a really filthy, awful human being. He stated on his show recently that, back in his ugly days, he once fired an employee for bringing him the wrong pen.

It's all well and good to admit you were horrible in the past. But I generally am of the view that people rarely change much. He fired someone for bringing him the wrong pen. He has that in him. Scary.

BTW, I think Barack Obama and John McCain are both better than the usual politicians. That may not be saying much, granted. But I think they are both well-meaning men. Obviously we never have candidates who are as good as a nation as great as America should be able to produce. But, we could've done a lot worse than Obama vs. McCain. And whoever was gonna win last year's election was walking into a big pile of shit to deal with. That being the case, the winner of the election should have been given a fair chance before being written off as a failed president. Obama has, so far, not been given a fair chance. I'll be amongst those voting to put him in check in 2010 if I don't like what's going on, but I am waiting and seeing. I gave the same fairness to Bush. Bush was a disaster. :/

That's why I voted for Obama. Not because he was so great, but because he'd be better. And he largely has been, I think.

I would suggest that only an Obama optimist or apologist would say this.

If I were to pick the one place where there would have been the biggest difference, I think it would be in honesty. The Democrats regained control of Congress and thw White House partly on their call to end the Culture of Corruption.

And, as a result, we have the most corrupt White House in the last half century, and a Congress that looks like it wants to compete with The Democratic Congresses right before the Gingrich Revolution.

So, we have a tax cheat running Treasury and over the IRS, another one heading the committee that writes tax legislation. We have the guy who got Marc Rich his pardon, in trade for a lot of money for the Clinton family, and his motly crew of anarchists. So, for example, the AG has a woman who had sued on behalf of terrorists now high up in the DoJ working on the problem of the terrorists in GitMo. Meanwhile, the DoJ has dropped multiple corruption investigations against political allies, while redirecting its energies into destroying the CIA. Multiple Inspectors General have left involuntarily, one at least fired, for attempting to do their job and police corruption.

The Pay-to-Play is now on a scale that dwarfs any imaginable before. We had an almost trillion dollar "stimulus" package that has pretty much just stimulated close Obama allies. Two of the big Three domestic car companies have been destroyed, in order to protect the pensions of their UAW workers. We now have a trade war, that we cannot win, with China, with the only possible beneficiaries here being the unions involved.

No, I don't think that McCain would have brought Chicago style corrupt politics to the White House, and decidedly not at the monstrous levels we have seen with Obama. McCain may not have been as lily white as he would have liked, but he at least tried to be clean.

Of course, Beck likes this. He is making millions of dollars exposing the rampant corruption that surrounds the President and the other Democratic leaders. He might still be back at MSNBC (or wherever he was), making a fraction of what he is making now, if McCain had won.

I'm truly sorry. It must be tough. Try reforming in a way that doesn't cast contempt upon the non-ideological concerns of the public at large if you ever want to stand a chance in the foreseeable future.

MUL, you mean like claiming that all critics of the President's agenda are bigots? That kind of not casting contempt of concerns?

The lack of compromise isn't really for the sake of ideology but because they know there's no profit in compromising with people who don't take competence seriously.

Ah, so MUL DOES get why the Republicans don't support Obama's policies. At least one Leftie does.

I agree with several of the commenters: No earmarks. You didn't think that was too important during the campaign, Ann - only a billion or so, right? But who could have foreseen the Stimulus bill. Think about most of a trillion dollars, taken from us and given to the Democrats' political cronies.Whatever his faults, McCain believed in a balanced budget. He wouldn't have bankrupted the country.On the other hand - if the Democrats try and fail big, for instance, not passing health care reform, not passing Cap and Trade, then it might be worth it. There are a lot more conservatives today than there two years ago, and they are a lot more fired up.Perhaps I care less about some of the foreign policy stuff than other commenters, though it's a crime what the US is doing to Honduras. I think we probably should leave Afghanistan and NATO; I don't see them as being as critical to our interests as most conservatives, and don't want to throw good money and blood after bad.

Supposedly when Republicans commit some sexual sin it's the hypocrisy that means that they should be taken down. Democrats, on the other hand, are excused because they never pretend to be about "family values." So for them it's just sex and no big deal.

How then to explain the rampant corruption and ethics issues with Democrats who just continue on in office? Do Democrats get a pass on ethics because they never claimed to be honest?

You hire someone to babysit for your kids. The very first night out, you come home to find her high on cocaine and boffing her boyfriend in your bed. So you kick her out and say you'll never hire her again.

"You didn't give me a fair chance", she whines. "I've only been your babysitter for one day!"

t's a gamble. Either Obama sparks a real conservative push or he succeeds in achieving near total Statism and game over.

Apart from my problem with the either/or presented, what I truly find breathtaking is--from an entirely different side--is the implicit embracing of "Obama," that one man, that one person, that one person in one particular office, as being so all-powerful.

Do you actually not know what you're doing, sub rosa, in presenting stuff like that?

I can see how others are viewing things. Even if I disagree, I can sincerely and seriously "see." And from my POV, there's no honor in saying otherwise anymore. (Of course there are exceptions: But by definition, those would be, well, exceptional.) Go ahead and shoot at me, if that's a problem.

In my not-spare time, I actually do things. Homeschool my son. Do activities with my son. Continue on-going education and skills-sharpening. Have a home life. Maintain a long-standing marriage. Travel back and forth, back and forth, here and there, related to family. Work at one work-source. Work at another. Look for work elsewhere. Volunteer (less than before, now, but, y'know, life is an ebb-and-flow sorta thing).

What the thing is: I DO stuff; I just do it.

The other is: Either the stuff, or what's required to do the stuff, changes all the time, and has for a long time. That's how it goes. So it goes.

And I'd being doing that stuff no matter "what time I have left over" from whatever thing you all think I should being paying more attention to, or to be more precise, ***paying attention to in a specific, approved, circumscribed*** way. Well, I don't have time for that.

Yet, I'm engaged in public life. A voter, even;--sorry, but how 'bout that?

Far better, with regard to health insurance/health care reform, for one example, you should refer to it as XX-care (insert the name of each of your Senators and Representatives) early and often, when you call and e-mail each and every one individually, and most especially when you ****write**** them individual letters, still (alas, perhaps, but only perhaps), believe it or not, something which impresses.

(1) There is nothing I think you should be paying more attention to. I've never asserted that there was.

(2) You said to focus on that one thing that you can do. Okay, but I had no idea what the context was for that comment and assumed that the context had something to do with the politics-related comments that you were responding to.

(3) Because I didn't know what you meant, I asked and threw out some guesses. Your response was to excoriate me for seemingly no reason at all, and to let that stand even with the benefit of hindsight.

(4) I was not challenging you in a silly way because I wasn't challenging you at all.

Am I the only one who sees the problem here?--the not just implicit, but explicit buying into our current president as being, in effect, all-powerful?

Yes, because you're imagining it.

The idea is that if his agenda gets through, the relationship between the individual and the State will be fundamentally changed, and it's game over for libertarian conservatism. If it doesn't get through, my guess is that it will be due to a resurgence f libertarian conservatism.

If it gets through, it's because that agenda has been adopted by a sufficient number of representatives and senators in the Legislative branch. Without that branch (and in some cases [alas], the judicial branch], when it comes to domestic policy, the executive branch agenda has, *relatively speaking*, is pretty much a wish list with a bully pulpit attached (and, yes, a veto pen ... but even then, Congress COULD choose to override, the executive's desires & wishes, or in other words agenda, be damned).

This is precisely my problem with such nicknames as ObamaCare and whatnot. It, in effect, changes the focus from where, IMO, it ought be--*on Congress,* primarily, massively and overwhelmingly. Presidents come and go every four or eight years. Congress critters (of either the Senate or Congressional flavor) generally do not. More's the pity, because that's our *REAL* problem, IMO, with regard to domestic policy of all stripes.